Rating system abuse by webmasters

[RDude]

Having a rating system on a site - in my case http://www.mygaylinklist.com/ - can be a great thing, however, I'm very quickly seeing hardcore abuse of the feature on the directory. All IP addresses are recorded, so it's not hard to figure out who is giving other blogs and sites low ratings - webmasters who own other sites and blogs on the directory. Also, the sites being rated down are quite good. So it's certainly a competition thing.

So....what should I do? Get rid of the rating system altogether? I don't want to do that if I can help it.

Cut off the webmasters engaging in this activity to the point where they can't submit to the directory? This is certainly a good idea at this point.

All of the above?

It's pretty frustrating and to completely do away with the rating system just because of a few assholes is really not something I want to do. However, we have to do things we don't necessarily want to do in life sometimes. Currently there are 2 webmasters doing it.

Thanks for the feedback :cool:

[Gaystoryman]

Have you contacted the offending webmaster's? If not, maybe try that first, but if they are skewing the results, might be best to not have user input at all.

Are you using a plug in for it? If so, maybe you can find a way to restrict or alter the votes they are casting, or perhaps even block the ip's posting from voting? might be worth looking into.

my pennies worth

[RDude]

I have contacted the webmasters yes. No response. That was just about a week ago. After a few low ratings, I thought nothing of it. Then I took at look at the IP addresses and....Bingo.

I'm using LinkX and the rating system is stock with it. I can turn it off and have a fair amount of control over it. I think I'll look into how I can modify it to my liking. If that doesn't work, I'll have to look into other methods I guess.

I have blacklisted a few IP addresses so far. It looks like I'll have to blacklist some more. Alas.....

Thanks for the pennies GSM.

[dzinerbear]

Isn't it pathetic that webmasters have to resort to these kinds of tactics.

I might bother to talk to the offending webmasters once, tell them if they're caught doing it again, you'll ban them for life. But in all honesty (and no offense) your directory has just started, so it's unlikely that you're sending heaps of traffic. You'll be in that position one day, but right now, I just don't see that you have a lot of leverage.

I'm putting together a blog/directory and I was thinking about user rating, but in the end, I decided to hire a programmer to create a system that allows me to rank the sites the way I want. You just can't rely on users to be honest or act appropriately.

Michael

[Paul]

Bjorn was having a similar issue a few months ago with his blog directory. Maybe ask him what he did about it.

I never pay much attention to the ratings or click results when I surf looking for things. Some of favorite blogs are only rated 2.

[marcjacob]

I can understand giving your own sites a high rating (provided you just do it once) but giving competitor sites a low rating would be a hanging offence to me. I'd ban them. The thing I love most about this industry is that we all help each other. You will find paysite owners in the same niche sharing ideas and traffic tips. To do what these webmasters are doing is really nasty imo.

[Tube4Gay]

I would simply filter any redundant entry that I detect.

[Mickey]

thats one of the reasons why i dont use a rating system on my toplist... people will vote the other sites down and their own one up...

[Daniel]

I think a ratings tool is a fairly useless feature - the owner would usually just fix theirs to the top, and a lot of other people vote theirs up and everyone else down. I don't think many surfers spend the time to sit down and think over a vote, rendering the feature somewhat useless.

[RDude]

Thanks for all the feedback and tips folks. I appreciate it. Yes, it's pathetic when people think they have to resort to this kind of behaviour. It sure ruins it for everyone.

I don't have any issues with a webmaster voting for their own site. It's going to happen. However, voting down others' is just plain low-life behaviour. Nothing but.

I've put up a big note on the submission page that's pretty hard to miss. lol I also contacted the 2 webmasters once again and laid down the line. One has been blacklisted and had their links removed, as they did it once again. Tsk tsk.


I think a ratings tool is a fairly useless feature - the owner would usually just fix theirs to the top, and a lot of other people vote theirs up and everyone else down. I don't think many surfers spend the time to sit down and think over a vote, rendering the feature somewhat useless.

Perhaps I'm pathetically honest, but I actually don't vote my own sites to the top. LOL. I figure people will find them on their own and while some of my sites have made it to the top, I like to think that surfers have honestly liked them and voted for them. They've gone up and down in rating, like a lot of others sites have on the list. It's to be expected of course.

You make some good points though for sure and if things keep being abused the rating system will no longer exist.

On another note, to those of you who have bareback and/or red head sites etc, Google is loving those pages in a big way as much as it is the home page. So get them up on the directory if you want a little bump in traffic. The link list is now in #1 position for the term "gay link list" (on google.ca at my end), with an Alexa ranking of 1,602,904 and popularity for the last week is up 551,890. Not bad for 6 weeks in my opinon. PR 2 - although, that really doesn't seem to mean much these days from what I see.

Peace out

[Daniel]

Obviously I wasn't suggesting you do :) - but regardless I don't have anything against webmasters that do - I was more commenting on the general use of ratings being a bit limited seeing as users just don't seem to get as involved as they do when rating hotels, restaurants etc - I guess their mind is elsewhere..

[RDude]

Obviously I wasn't suggesting you do :) - but regardless I don't have anything against webmasters that do - I was more commenting on the general use of ratings being a bit limited seeing as users just don't seem to get as involved as they do when rating hotels, restaurants etc - I guess their mind is elsewhere..

It's all good. I know directory owners do it and you can't blame them. It's all part of the game. I'll put up a few banners and whatnot here and there as is expected, but my main goal with this list is to garner some more traffic and it's working. ;)